But she mustn’t dwell on the past. Cameron Crewe had helped her with that.
“Don’t shut it out. That only gives it more power. But don’t let it consume you.” That was Cameron’s mantra. It was how he’d survived after his own son died. And it was working for Tracy too. Cameron was the one who’d encouraged her to travel with Nick’s photograph.
“His face is in your head, so why not in a picture frame? He’ll always be with you, Tracy. Let him be.”
Thank God for Cameron, Tracy thought for the millionth time, peeling off her clothes and stepping into the shower. I would officially be a basket case without him.
Remembering Frank Dorrien’s vile insinuations about him at lunch today, she felt the anger surge back up inside her. It also angered her that Frank had referred to Cameron as her “boyfriend,” twice. Firstly because Tracy had no idea how the British General knew anything about her personal life. And secondly because she didn’t consider herself to be in a relationship. Whatever Cameron Crewe was to her—friend, lover, therapist—it was temporary. Once this was all over, once Tracy had found Althea and knew the real truth about Nick’s death, they would part ways. Neither of them had said so in so many words. But it was understood.
At least, Tracy hoped it was. Frank Dorrien, damn him, had begun to make her doubt. Did Cameron think of himself as her boyfriend? Did he imagine them having a future together?
Slathering lavender shower gel over her body, Tracy struggled to untangle her emotions. Thinking about Cameron Crewe made her feel happy and sad at the same time. Happy because, in so many ways, he had brought her back to life. He was interesting and funny and passionate and Tracy loved being in his company. But she felt sad too, because she knew she was no longer capable of the sort of love that would make him happy. Cameron had shown her that there was life after Nick’s death. But he’d also confirmed what Tracy already knew: that a part of her had died with her son. Yes, she could still feel pleasure. She could still taste food and savor music and experience affection, perhaps even love. But these things were only an inch deep now, where once they’d been bottomless. Tracy felt them on her skin, but not in her soul. Her soul was deep beneath the Colorado earth, with Nick.
Before Tracy met Cameron Crewe, that hadn’t mattered to her.
Now it did, if only for his sake.
Drying herself, Tracy slipped into a toweling robe and wrapped her hair up turban style in one of the hotel’s butter-soft towels. Walking to the bathroom window, she gazed out at the Paris skyline. The rooftops of the city were a world of their own, a mishmash of tiles and stone and copper, of piercing spires and majestically curved domes. In the distance, above it all, the Eiffel Tower loomed, iconic, watching over everything like an amused wrought-iron god, surveying his kingdom.
Tracy loved Paris. France, generally, was a country of happy memories. The Château de Matigny at Cap d’Antibes, where she and Jeff had made off with two million dollars’ worth of jewels and a Leonardo; Biarritz, where she’d outsmarted the repellent Armand Grangier. But Paris had always held a special place in Tracy’s heart, perhaps because she’d never pulled off a job here. To her and Jeff, Paris had meant pleasure, a respite from the stress and adrenaline of their lives as con artists. Paris meant food and art and love. Paris meant beauty.
Tracy had always meant to bring Nicholas here one day, when he was older.
But of course, Nicholas would never be older.
There were no more “one days.”
She was still gazing out at the city when she heard it. A very soft click so quiet it was almost inaudible. But Tracy’s trained ear recognized it as a door being opened.
She froze. The door to her suite was locked. She hadn’t ordered room service, and the maids never cleaned at this time. Besides, if it were housekeeping they would make more noise.
Someone’s breaking in.
The bathroom door was open a crack. In the mirrored wall, Tracy glimpsed movement, a man’s shadow crossing the room. Her mind raced. Any second now he could come into the bathroom and attack her. Her suite was eight floors up and it was a sheer drop from the bathroom window. No ledges or fire escapes. She could make a run for the bathroom door, try to lock it from the inside. But he would likely get there before her. And even if he didn’t, assuming he had a gun he could blow off the bolt in seconds.
Deciding attack was not just her best but her only form of defense, Tracy picked up a heavy marble soap dish from beside the bath, wielding it over her head and ran screaming like a banshee into the bedroom. The man was standing over the bed with his back to her. He’d pulled one of her dresses out of the closet and was holding it up to the light admiringly. He only had time to half turn in surprise as Tracy leaped on him, bringing her right arm down with as much force as she could towards his skull.
But his reflexes were quicker than she’d bargained for. In an adrenaline-fueled haze, Tracy felt his fingers grip her arm like a vice, forcing it backwards painfully and shaking it like a terrier shaking a rat until the soap dish fell from her hand and clattered noisily onto the floor.
“Tracy!”
She was struggling so hard, she didn’t hear her name.
“Tracy, for God’s sake, relax. It’s me.”
For the second time in as many minutes, Tracy froze.
He let her go and for a long moment the two of them sat on the bed in shock, staring at each other.
Then Jeff Stevens smiled broadly.
“Put this on.” He handed Tracy the dress he’d been holding, a red silk Chanel shift. “I’m taking you to dinner.”
CHAPTER 21
WELL, THIS IS NICE, isn’t it, darling? Just like old times.”
Tracy and Jeff were sitting in a corner table, tucked away at the back of a nondescript bistro about a hundred yards from Tracy’s hotel. Jeff looked as dapper as ever in a perfectly tailored dark suit. Tracy was wearing a lightweight black sweater and knee-length skirt, with no jewelry and minimal makeup. She’d purposefully refused to wear the red dress that Jeff had picked out for her in the hotel room. Partly because Jeff had picked it out. Tracy didn’t like having decisions made for her. And partly because the dress was far too sexy. Whatever tonight’s dinner turned out to be, it wasn’t a date.
“What are you doing here, Jeff?” It wasn’t a question so much as an accusation.
Jeff sipped his wine. “Having dinner with a stunning woman.”
“I mean what are you doing in Paris,” Tracy said firmly.
“It’s a beautiful city.” Jeff snapped a breadstick playfully. “And I hear the poker’s wonderful here.”
“I wouldn’t know,” said Tracy.
“Of course you wouldn’t, darling.” Jeff chuckled to himself. He’d always loved playing these games with Tracy. They both knew that the other had been there at Montmartre that night, but neither of them would be first to admit it.
“I mean it, Jeff. Why are you here?” Tracy said, suddenly serious. “The truth, please.”
Jeff looked hurt. “When have I ever lied to you?”
Tracy’s eyebrows shot up so far they almost disappeared altogether.
“OK, OK,” said Jeff. “The truth. I’m working for British intelligence.”
Tracy burst out laughing. “You?”
“And why is that so funny?”
“Well now, let me think . . . Perhaps because the last I heard you were on their Most Wanted list?”
Jeff shrugged. “Times change. You’re working for the CIA, after all. Or is it the FBI?”
“That’s different.”
“How? In a world where you and Agent Buck are colleagues, I’d say we’re all pretty far down the rabbit hole. Wouldn’t you?”
Tracy couldn’t deny this. Even so, she found it very hard indeed to picture Jeff as an MI6 stooge.
“OK. So you’re working for the Brits. On what? Group 99?”
Jeff nodded, dropping his voice to a whisper. “I’m here for the same reason you are. The British want to find Hu
nter Drexel. Badly. Julia Cabot doesn’t trust President Havers as far as she can spit. She wants MI6 to find Drexel first so that they can discover whatever it is the Americans are hiding.”
“And what does she think that is?” Tracy asked.
“No idea,” said Jeff. “Let’s order.”
They both ordered green salads. Tracy followed hers with a light bouillabaisse. Jeff, predictably, opted for steak frites.
“This whole thing clearly has something to do with fracking,” Jeff said, once the salads arrived. “Europe’s being carved up according to an underground map of shale gas reserves. It’s the new Wild West, with billions of dollars at stake. Right now the U.S. is the world leader in that industry with China close behind. But that could change. Poland, Greece, Bratislava, they all have gas. Ordinary people there are suffering, yet they have a fortune in natural resources quite literally sitting beneath their feet.”
“You can see why that angers Group 99,” Tracy agreed. “It’s the same old story. Like Africa’s diamonds or Saudi Arabia’s oil. A tiny minority are becoming unimaginably wealthy while the rest of the people starve.”
“But the governments let it happen because the tax revenues are huge.”
“And the GDP soars up.”
“Right.” Jeff smiled. It was wonderful talking with Tracy again. Seeing through the bullshit together. Seeing eye to eye. He’d missed this.
“So that’s the backdrop,” Tracy said. “I understand MI6’s interest. But where do you fit in? What’s your connection?”
“My connection?” Jeff laughed. “My connection is you, Tracy.”
She looked confused.
“I was brought in to keep tabs on you. To find out what you were doing for the Americans. And what you might be doing behind their backs,” Jeff added knowingly. “They had other applicants, but I was the only one with twenty years of experience following you around the globe.”
He grinned, but Tracy didn’t find it funny.
“Let me get this straight. So the plan was for me to do all the legwork. Find Althea, and Hunter Drexel. Figure out the connections. And then you would swoop in and take all the glory?”
“Something like that,” Jeff beamed. “After all, it worked in Madrid. When you helpfully stole the Puerto for me. Remember?”
“How could I forget?”
It still stung. Jeff had roundly outsmarted Tracy on that occasion, presenting Gunther Hartog with the famous Goya masterpiece that Tracy had painstakingly procured in a brilliant con that had been months in the making. Back then the rivalry between them had been fun and exciting, a foreplay of sorts, although neither of them recognized it at the time. Now, everything was very different. This wasn’t a game. This was real. And Group 99 wasn’t a gallery or a rich collector. It was a terrorist organization. Innocent people were being kidnapped and tortured and murdered. Government systems were being hacked. Children were being shot to death, all in the name of a group that had once stood for justice and equality, for righting the world’s wrongs.
The violence had started with Bob Daley’s brains being splattered across a screen. And it was still going on. Althea was still out there, Hunter Drexel was still missing. There was no end in sight.
The waiter cleared their salads and returned promptly with the entrees. Jeff took a bite of mouthwateringly tender steak before turning back to Tracy.
“You do realize I’m not doing this just because MI6 asked me to,” he said, refilling Tracy’s glass. “I had my own agenda.”
“Which was?” Tracy looked up at him questioningly. “Let me guess. There’s a Renoir in a château somewhere you need to liberate? Or a Fabergé egg collection desperate for a new home?”
“No,” said Jeff. “I came here to protect you.”
Tracy frowned. “I don’t need protection. I can take care of myself.”
“I disagree.” Jeff sipped his wine. “From what I’ve seen you’ve made some dangerous friends recently.”
Tracy’s eyes narrowed. “Meaning?”
“Oh, I think you know. Do you realize how many of Group 99’s actions in the last six months have ended up benefiting Crewe Oil? Directly or indirectly?”
“Not you as well . . .” Tracy muttered darkly.
“I mean it,” said Jeff. “Think about it. How well do you know this guy? I mean really know him.”
“Well enough to know that he’s a good man,” Tracy shot back angrily. “This is Frank Dorrien talking, Jeff, not you.”
“That’s not true.”
“No? Well let me ask you a question. Has it ever occurred to you to ask why the General’s so keen to prove a link between Group 99 and Cameron Crewe? Could it be to take the heat off himself?”
Now it was Jeff’s turn to frown. “The heat? What heat?”
“Frank Dorrien’s using you, Jeff! He’s in this up to his neck. Starting with Prince Achileas’s suicide. That was a cover-up if ever I saw one.”
“Maybe it was,” admitted Jeff. “But you’re wrong about Frank. He’s a decent man.”
“Decent?” Tracy’s eyes widened. “He ransacked the kid’s room after he died. Stole his computer. That much I know for a fact. He’s a liar, a sexist and a homophobe, not to mention anti-American. And I think he’s a killer.”
“That’s ridiculous, Tracy.”
“Is it?”
“Yes! I know Frank Dorrien. You don’t.”
“Oh yeah? Well, I know Cameron Crewe. And you don’t. Cameron’s a decent man, Jeff. More than decent. He’s one of the best.”
“I know you want to believe that, Tracy,” Jeff said, trying and failing to block the images of Tracy and Cameron together in Hawaii out of his mind.
“I don’t want to believe it. I do believe it. And if you don’t it’s either because Frank Dorrien’s poisoned you against him, or because you’re jealous!”
As soon as the words were out of her mouth, Tracy regretted them. The last thing she wanted to do was to make things personal between her and Jeff. To open up a door to the past, their shared past. But that was exactly what she’d just done.
Reaching across the table, Jeff took her hand.
“I came to look for you, you know. After Nick died. When you called me in London. I got the next plane out.”
“I know,” Tracy croaked.
“Then why did you run?”
She shook her head silently. Tears welled in her eyes.
“You owe me an answer, Tracy.”
She looked up at him. “I told you not to come.”
“He was my son too, you know.”
To Jeff’s surprise, she reacted angrily to this.
“No! It’s not the same,” she insisted. “It’s nowhere close to the same. I raised him, Jeff. I raised him alone.”
“Only because I never knew he existed!” Jeff protested.
But Tracy wasn’t listening. “Nick was my world. My whole world. You don’t know what it’s like, to lose that, to have it taken from you.”
“You’re right,” Jeff said quietly. “I don’t. But I did love him. And I wanted to be there. Not just for him but for you.”
They sat silently for a moment, suspended in a fragile bubble of grief.
Then Jeff burst it. “I love you, Tracy.”
Tracy fell painfully back to earth.
“Please. Don’t.”
“Don’t what? Don’t love you? Or don’t say it out loud?”
“Both!”
Tracy tried to pull her hand away but Jeff tightened his grip.
“Why not? It’s the truth. I love you and you love me. You can’t run from that forever, Tracy.”
“Oh yes I can! Don’t you see?” She looked at him in utter exasperation. “You are the one person, the one person, who I absolutely cannot be with. Ever.”
“Why not?” Jeff’s voice wavered. He felt close to tears himself.
“Because everything about you, your face, your voice, your walk, everything brings him back to me. When I look at you, I see Ni
ck.”
“But you love me, Tracy. We love each other,” Jeff pleaded.
“It isn’t enough,” Tracy said sadly. “ Seeing you drags me back to the darkness.”
“And I suppose Cameron Crewe pulls you into the light, does he?” Jeff said bitterly. He knew he was being unfair but he couldn’t help himself.
Tracy didn’t answer. A gloomy silence fell as the waiter cleared their plates and returned with a dessert menu.
Jeff broke it first. “I have a proposal.”
As he leaned forward across the table, his eyes were sparkling again. It was the old Jeff. Irrepressible. Tracy thought, He’s still alive inside. And I’m not. That’s the real difference between us. The chasm that can never be bridged.
“Let’s find Hunter together. As a team,” said Jeff. “Cabot and Havers may not trust each other. And the CIA and MI6 certainly don’t. But we do. You and I can achieve far more than the lot of them put together.”
It was an interesting proposal, the same proposal that Tracy had made to Cameron not so long ago. Although even she had to admit that Cameron hadn’t been much practical help so far, other than as a sounding board. At least she and Jeff knew how to get things done.
“What would we do when we found him?” Tracy asked. “Hand him over to the British? Or the Americans?”
“That depends,” said Jeff.
“On what?”
“On what he has to say for himself. On what he’s hiding. By the way, I do love the way that you said ‘when.’ ”
Tracy thought for a moment. It would be helpful to pick Jeff’s brains, not just on finding Hunter but on getting him to tell them the truth. Having a partner to work with would make things a lot easier. But if Jeff was prepared to risk everything to help her, to play a double game with his British paymasters, she owed it to him to be honest about her own involvement.
Taking a deep breath, she said, “There’s something I need to tell you.”
Slowly, and without once making eye contact, she told him the story he’d already heard from Jamie MacIntosh. About Althea requesting that Tracy be brought onto the CIA team, mentioning her by name. About a woman fitting Althea’s description tampering with Blake’s truck before it ran off the road, and later showing up at the hospital where the doctors had battled to save Nick.
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